


The “Elementary” Years (1908-1911)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [227]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Edwardian, Art, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Gay Sex, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Minor Character Infidelity, Retirement, Sherlock in Panties, Sussex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 12:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Edwardian England gives way to a new Georgian Age, and Europe again teeters on the brink of war. A new Watson family member is a less than welcome addition, someone is seen at the baths, and Ellen and Bobby get what they wanted – six times over!





	1. Olympics And Offers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nirelian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nirelian/gifts).



1908

Despite the care and love of the greatest man in the whole wide world, nothing could stop me from feeling at times just plain _old_. The first powered flight had taken place in the United States shortly before our retirement, and the year of my son Benjamin's case had seen the British Army's first powered airship, heralding a new age of war that would now take to the skies. As with the fuss over eugenics which I mentioned elsewhere, I increasingly felt that technology was a mixed blessing, and that mankind might come to rue inventing some things sooner rather than later. And I still reserved a special dislike for those ghastly 'automobiles', although my son clearly loved the metal death-traps!

Over one hundred and forty medals, more than fifty of them gold, marked the Olympic Games being held in London that year. We had received an invitation but did not go; I found that I increasingly disliked crowds, preferring the quiet of our cottage. Well, the quiet when Sherlock was not making me scream, that was! The knowing look that I got from the vicar one particular Sunday was mortifying, especially when he mentioned how much he enjoyed 'the peace and quiet of walking in the country'! Nor did I attend the first-ever Ideal Home Exhibition in the capital that same year. My home was ideal enough, provided it had a Sherlock in it.

That summer also saw yet another European crisis. The year before, France and Great Britain had signed an entente with Tsarist Russia, which nearly had dire consequences at this time. Readers may remember our 'Turkish' adventure from Montague Street back in 'Seventy-Eight (thirty years ago, worse luck!), and after that time a most curious arrangement was effected in the Balkans whereby the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina remained the property of the Ottoman Empire but were administered by the Austrians. The small, independent nation of Serbia coveted these areas as many Serbs lived there so, fearful of efforts to prize them away, Vienna now went and annexed them. The Serbs protested to the Russians, but the latter were not prepared for a full-scale European war, so a crisis was once more averted. For now.

Back to domestic matters, and although I made a point not to interfere in other people's lives as a rule, I had kept an eye out for our friend Victor Henriksen's grandson Virbius, whose physical prowess (ahem!) had brought us our penultimate case in Baker Street. I knew that he had just finished training to be a doctor, but suspected – correctly, as it turned out – that his skin colour might make gaining a foothold in his chosen profession more difficult than it should have done. Sherlock helped monitor him for me and told me that this was indeed the case, so we arranged for Lady Merioneth, patroness of one of the most prestigious surgeries in the West End, to see the picture he and his friend Mr. West had done as “Gladiators At The Baths”. And yes, some blue-eyed bastard insisted on getting a copy of the picture 'for research purposes', and I can honestly say that it left nothing whatsoever to the imagination!

Virbius had a job offer that same evening. He also had a second offer from Lady Merioneth – yes, the Lady Merioneth that was married with five children! - that extended to his friend and six more paintings – on condition that Her Ladyship could 'sit in' whilst they were being done! Honestly, the nobility these days!

Well, it was good money.


	2. Political Games

1909

For the first time in two years I came to London – with Sherlock, of course – to see two new establishments; a plush new department store called Selfridge's in Oxford Street, and the new Victoria and Albert Museum. I always thought that the museum was one of the greatest Victorian contributions to society, enabling people to learn about different things in peace and tranquillity. That was also the year of the famous (or infamous) People's Budget, the first to levy large taxes on the wealthy. Personally I thought that this was a bad idea, not just because it would hit Sherlock's family (most of whom I had little regard for anyway) but because those affected might well depart for another country, leaving England worse off than before. I also suspected, correctly as it turned out, that Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr. David Lloyd George and his on-off ally the unpredictable President of the Board of Trade Mr. Winston Churchill were using it as a way to win control over the House of Lords for their Liberal government. That seemed born out when, as everyone had predicted, the House of Lords rejected the budget, paving the way for a general election the following year.


	3. Omnibus

1910

The election, as it turned out, solved nothing; the Liberals lost over a hundred seats but clung onto power with the support of the Irish parties. Mr. Asquith remained as prime minister and was still determined to force through the Parliament Act, giving the lower house supremacy in all matters. King Edward VII promised to sign such a bill, and the Lords withdrew their objections. Indeed, even the death of 'Edward the Caresser' – without whom we may not have secured our _Entente Cordiale_ with the French – did not change things, as his son and successor George V made it clear that he too would back the change.

Sherlock and I had cause to visit the capital again at the end of that year, when his sister fell ill. I was horrified to see that some of the trusty old horse-drawn omnibuses had been replaced by new petrol-driven vehicles, which emitted all sorts of noxious fumes as they chuntered along, barely any faster than what they had replaced. My annoyance at least made Mrs. Thompson laugh, and I am pleased to say that she soon recovered. And my bastard of a mate insisted that I go on one of the vehicles before we returned to the blessed safety and sanctity of the cottage. It was a horrendous experience that I never wished to repeat again, though he soothed my ruffled feathers with a private compartment all the way back to Sussex, and a 'ride' that left me having to sit down at Acklington Station for some time before I could make the great trek out to the cab in the station-yard. 

I was sure that I caught the station staff exchanging money as we left. I considered glaring at them, but it would have taken too much effort.


	4. Coronations And Cuckoldry

1911

That summer, England was ablaze with colour as the country marked the coronation of King George the Fifth and Queen Mary. There was, I thought, something almost desperate in the people’s urge to celebrate whilst they could; after the Tangiers and Bosnian Crises, the Germans had again been forced to back away from Morocco because the British had stood by their French allies. But our luck could not hold for ever, hence the urge to party like it was still the nineteenth century. 

On this particular day we had exchanged the countryside for the seaside, paying a surprise visit to Ellen and Bobby Singer, who still ran _“The Roadhouse”_ in Eastbourne. The little resort was, like our own Casdene, decked out in red, white and blue, and several roads had been closed off for street parties. I smiled, both at that and the frankly frazzled looks on the faces of the elderly couple.

“It was good to see that Jo and Ash are all right”, Sherlock observed politely.

Our former landlady gave him a dirty look; we had timed our visit to coincide with that of the Lindbergs and their six children. Yes, _six_ children. I remember back in '04 and the _“Marseilles”_ case next door to here, when our former landlady had been despairing of ever becoming a grandmother, but shortly after that her son-in-law had finally got his finger (or something) out, and her daughter had been popping out little Lindbergs on a regular basis ever since. Naming the first two Robert and Ellen had been a smart move for the father, which was probably why he was allowed to keep the appendages that had enabled him to have more. The others had been Janet (Mr. Lindberg's mother), William (Mrs. Singer's first husband), Peter (Mr. Lindberg's father) and Rufus (Mr. Singer’s friend back in the United States).

“One child exhausted me, even if it was Jo”, Ellen sighed. “Having six of the little blighters here at once…. It makes me really feel my age.”

“John is sixty next year”, chirped a certain blue-eyed genius who wasn’t getting lucky that evening. Probably. I glared at him.

“I thought that you would both find retirement a lot more difficult”, Bobby observed. “Get yourself dragged back every time there was a suspicious death or a political crisis in the offing.”

“I made it clear that fifty was as far as I was prepared to go”, Sherlock said firmly. “Apart from the matter of John’s friend Mr. Warburton, and, well, a certain affair involving laundry items, I have kept to that.”

I looked at him In horror as the elderly couple both leant forward, clearly agog.

“ _Do_ tell!” Ellen grinned. 

The bastard wasn't getting lucky all week, now!

He gave me a pointed look.

Probably.

+~+~+

“Something is bothering you”, I said as walked along the sea-front later that day. We were to spend the night at a hotel in the town, “The Roadhouse” being fully booked, and then most of the next day with the Singers, so there was no hurry. “Is it to do with your father’s passing?”

Sir Charles Holmes had died the month before, and Sherlock had found the funeral particularly painful. Worse, the knight's will had only added fuel to the fire. The entire Holmes wealth was to be run by a trust for the remainder of Lady Rebecca’s life, and once she passed, it was to split into two equal parts. One would be run by and for Sherlock, Lucius Holmes and Mrs. Anna Thompson, and the other would similarly be for the remaining siblings; Mycroft, Gaylord and Bacchus Holmes. Mycroft Holmes in particular had been bitter over the allocations, presumably thinking that as the eldest son, he should have got more if not everything. Words had been exchanged, and Sherlock had been both angry and upset when I had collected him from the station. 

I had had to let him have his way with me for twenty-four hours to make him feel better. Honestly, the things that I put up with for that man!

“The telegram that came before we left this morning was from Luke”, he said, trying ineffectually to pat down his impossible hair. “He says that Mycroft did take legal advice on challenging the will, but was told that he was all but certain to fail.”

“That is good, is it not?” I wondered.

“Luke also spoke to me at the funeral”, he said, looking at me rather oddly. “He had a message for me from Miss Bradbury, concerning your niece, Emmeline.”

I sighed unhappily. Three years ago my nephew Johnson had married one Miss Emmeline Jane Garvey-Barnett whom Sherlock had immediately categorized as a ‘First-Class With Honours Complete Airhead’, an appellation with which I was soon forced to agree (even the saintly Jessica had confided to us her opinion that if we stood close enough to her daughter-in-law, we could probably hear the sea!). At the end of that year Emmeline had given birth to twins, James and Joanna, but it had soon become clear that she and her husband were ill-matched, and that she would and did flirt (and sleep) with just about any available male. She had even succeeded in wrangling an introduction to our lecherous late king, which had only been scuppered when that monarch had shuffled off this mortal coil just days before she had been due to meet him. He had been lucky so to do!

“She has been openly seeing a Hungarian businessman”, Sherlock said slowly, “which is how she had drawn Miss Bradbury's attention. I am sorry, John, but it has been going on for some little time. It may be even that the child she is now carrying…..”

He tailed off. Poor Johnnie. My nephew came over as someone who was always bright and breezy, but I knew that he did truly love his flibbertigibbet of a wife, and that this would hurt him greatly.

“The relationship with Mr. Budar is all but over”, Sherlock reassured me, “as the man in question is returning to his home country very soon. But your niece – well, a leopard does not change its spots, they say.”

I sighed unhappily.

“Come on”, he said, “and let’s go back to our hotel and see if I can take you away from all your worries.”

“That would be difficult”, I said heavily.

He was suddenly right next to me.

“I am wearing your favourite panties!” he whispered in my ear, before strolling rapidly away. And I chased after him.

Well, perhaps not chased. I was fifty-nine, after all. And it was damnably difficult to run with a full erection! But I tried!

+~+~+

Next, the run-in to the 'Great' War.


End file.
